Meg 228 (Hit The Deck!)...

[paulvonscott]

"Bato Loco's a judge, as the picture of him on the card shows."

Ah... he's Judge Dredd.  I see...

[GordonR]

Ah, so now we know what goes on down at the Perth Rotary Club: it's a front for a secret poker school.

There's also that ridiculous version for drunks, where you all stick a card onto your foreheads.  You can see everyone else's cards, and they can see yours, and you all start making dumb blind bets that your card is higher than anyone else's.

[crazy comic guy]

this issue is fantastic especially with the free pack of cards. i don't see why they didn't put this with the christmas issue. i mean last year a extra 42 or something mini-issue of Stront and this year nothing! But the issue makes up for the other flaws.  

[Oddboy]

But that's the only version I can play Gordon!

[Bico]

Haven't read it all yet, but could someone tell Johnathan Clements if he's going to review something, it usually helps to watch it all first.

[Jared Katooie]

Cits playing cards: These were cards all right but with ver familiar images. Only now they're black and white. Still, they're free which is decent enough I guess.

D+

Judge Dredd - Loved the black and white stuff but I suspect we wont see it again for about another decade. Whats important is that the colour art was excellent and the script was very good too. I didn't think much of the original Who? story but I like this one better. It just seems to be using the other tale as a base to build a better story.

B+

Middenface McNulty - Bit better this issue. I thinks it's basically a failure though. It's a big disappointment to me though as I really loved the original story in this arc. Oh well. The art was dissapointing too. The dead man was the best I ever saw Ridgeway get. The presence of the "Oirish" lads was a bit annoying too.

C-

Shimura - Yeah, it was good. I'm not a Morrison fan but there's no denying the quality of the art. The script was reasonable too. Maybe I'm just pleased the Japanese characters dont all run around with cameras and say "Ah-so!" all the time.

B

Anderson PSI division - This is good stuff all round. There appear to be multiple layers to the story giving it a bit of depth. Learning more about the supporting cast makes the story more enjoyable to me.

B

Cursed earth Koburn - The last Koburn story was bad but this one was good. The link to Dredds world was more clearly established here and there are some good ideas. This episode reminded me of a sort of futuristic western. I guess this ws supposed to be the point all along but here it seemed clearer than ever before.I could get to like this character.

B-

The Bogie man - I dont think this story is intended for me but it's pretty good fun. Wagner and Grant dont stretch credibility too much and Bogies does seem to be basing his decisions on some sort of bizarre logic.

B

Charley's war - Decent story. Okay ending.

B

Metro Dredd - This wasn't bad but like all Metro Dredds was fairly pointless.

C-

Other crap - The article on Modesty Blaise was better than expected but the text features still do nothing for me. The asian article was pretty bad. Pretty much all anime is badly written and boring to watch? Kind of makes your input pretty pointless. Gordons column went from from good to bad. Si mentioned that he liked post-apocalyptic films. Great.

D

Overall: The cards were a dissapointment and nothing here grabs me by the beard and says "I am good! Read me!". I cant say it was a bad issue because I liked a lot of it. It's just that I make a point of reading everything and I found that the text features were pretty rough going and downgraded the whole experience for me. It's my fault for forcing myself to read them, I guess.

C+

[Conexus]

Ha Ha! just realised, Devlin is the queen

[Floyd-the-k]

Kenny Who? is brilliant, I read the original back in the days when I didn`t read 2000 AD. Why I read the prog with that story in it, I can`t remember.
 I didn`t see the Rennie column as skewering Ennis in particular; the ethnic stereotypes he mentions apply to everyone who has written Judge stories, Rennie included.
 Those interviews with muties in Middenface were great weren`t they.
 I`m still not sure about The Bogie Man. Genius or one-joke curiosity? We shall see.
The Modesty Blaise article was cool and quite interesting. The Colin MacNeil interview likewise.
  Heatseekers have improved. It`s bonkers to describe Mad Max II as blowing it`s original out of the water. They`re such different movies there`s not much comparing to be done. Anyway, the original is genius.

[paulvonscott]

I was quite impressed to see the Modesty Blaise article in there.  And it told me a lot, as I really knew very little about her.

Oh and I think the Bogie Man has yet to kick off really.  I am enjoying it, but it hasn't quite got to the depths of madness the other ones achieved.  Still time!

I think the crrent Middenface not engaging with me as much as others have is that Middenface isn't central to the action.  And we're getting a general story as opposed to a personal one.  Still, I like it.

Ah, and a half-decent article from Pub-Banter Man!  Oh I used to love Sledge Hammer...

[Trout]

Apologies to Paul for my failure to remember anything at all about Bato Loco - or read that badge. :-)

Gordon:
it's a front for a secret poker school

Er, that's absolutely correct, I'm afraid, although it's not so secret.

- Trout

[Smiley]

Cor, enjoyed this Meg a LOT. Slight overkill on the comedy-jocko front and going to miss Charley's War for a while, but good call on the Modesty Blaise article. Looking forward to one on Jeff Hawke (hint).

[Devons Daddy]

i needed to take a little rest and another glass of ice cold tiger beer after reading this months meg

what can added to what has already been said.


 the gordon and frazier line had me laughing out loud. WAGNER THE MASTER, shows us the lesser mortals how it is done.
overall.
WOW!!!!!!

if any lurkers here dont get the meg. you are truly missing one of lifes pleasures.

[House of Usher]

The latest Megazine suggests to me the continuation of a generally improving arc.

I thought all of the stories were good, especially Anderson and Koburn. Anderson made me think of the film of Resident Evil, which was on last night incidentally, in that everyone is trapped in the building with a malevolent force that can animate the dead. It made a change for something actually scary to be happening in an Anderson story.

Charley's War ended its telling of the battle of the Somme with a brilliantly poignant quartet of episodes.

Maybe an over-abundance of (comedy) Scottishness, what with Who?, Middenface, Bogie Man and Metro Dredd; but in an anthology comic this size there's always bound to be too much of something.

The Colin MacNeil interview was great; and the Modesty Blaise item, while of no particular relevance, was at least a livelier and quicker read than a 6-page text story.

Once again I found Jonathan Clements's review a pleasure to read. I'll confess I know nothing about anime, so his views may be as worthless as confetti, but I think he always tells a good story.